New Delhi: In the absence of Mahatma Gandhi, we have a “Chhota” Gandhi in a moving action, in Dr.Annasaheb Hazare, who does not have to defend and protect his assets because he has none.
He lived in a small room in a rural temple of God in Religion Siddi, near Pune and a bed to sleep there.
Perhaps, as a long retired Army serviceman, he draws a petty pension to keep himself alive.
But he has transformed his village as none else did and that is why rural people in their hundreds, if not in thousands had gathered at the village, when the news of his arrest and a weeks “judicial custody” in Tihar Jail no.4 was broken to them. They were in turmoil and prayed for his release.
But he wouldn’t go out of Jail in 24 hours! He stays put there Hazare’s movement is truly typical of a ‘Quit India’ movement II, a week after Aug 9 and 70 years later (after 1942).
But the popular enthusiasm to fill the jails is still there, as whole Delhi stadium turned into a vast jail by nightfall and Hazare felt happy as Kiran Bedi and A. Kejriwal also were jailed about the outcome.
Yes, people still had remembered Gandhiji and not the Nehru or Sonia (G) congress. They were not going to jail, because Sonia is sick in a New York (USK) hospital.
They expected to see Hazare in Rajghat on Aug 16 morning, as he would be accustomed to do but the alert Delhi Police removed him from his Delhi house (M.P.’s?) and then the disappointed young Delhiwallas had no other go but to rush to J.P.Park, near Lodhi Estate and demonstrate there.
Out popular top congress leaders have difficulty in getting so many young men arrested in a lot in that manner in their own “popular” movements these days.